Rails get multiple values from db - ruby-on-rails

Question

I'm trying to retrieve multiple values from a database into a single variable and return the whole thing. Here is what I am doing
my_hash = {
'name' => 'John'
'current_location' => 'Sweden'
}
Now I need to go into database and retrieve all records and store them into a single variable, and then i need to add that variable into my_hash so I can return the whole thing. How would I do that?
Example:
last_names = Names.where('first_name = ?', 'John').select('last_name').last_name
my_hash.add(last_names)
return my_hash
Now that above does not works, can somebody tell me proper way to achieve this?

Answer 1

are you trying to do the following?
my_hash = {
'name' => 'John'
'current_location' => 'Sweden'
}
my_hash['last_names'] = Names.where('first_name = ?', 'John')
.select('last_name')
.map { |name| name.last_name }
# or shorthand version .map(&:last_name)
return my_hash
Updated
# get name objects from the database
# add select as an optimization if desired
last_name_list = Names.where('first_name = ?', 'John')
# get an array of only the last_name fields
last_names = last_name_list.map { |name| name.last_name }
# assign the array to the new hash key 'last_names'
my_hash['last_names'] = last_names
see http://www.ruby-doc.org/core-1.9.3/Array.html#method-i-map for documentation on map, note that map and collect are the same
another example
names = Names.where('updated_at >= ?', Date.parse('2013-01-01'))
# get an array of 'full names'
full_names = names.map do |name|
"#{name.first_name} #{name.last_name}"
end